HBO's Girls: Questions of Gender, Politics, and Millennial Angst
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HBO’s Girls HBO’s Girls: Questions of Gender, Politics, and Millennial Angst Edited by Betty Kaklamanidou and Margaret Tally HBO’s Girls: Questions of Gender, Politics, and Millennial Angst, Edited by Betty Kaklamanidou and Margaret Tally This book first published 2014 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by Betty Kaklamanidou, Margaret Tally and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5458-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5458-0 Betty dedicates this collection to her millennial students— you know who you are Margaret dedicates this collection to her daughters, Lila and Serena TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Girls: Questions of Gender, Politics, and Millennial Angst Betty Kaklamanidou and Margaret Tally Chapter One ............................................................................................... 10 “All Adventurous Women Do”: HBO’s Girls and the 1960-70s Single Woman Katherine J. Lehman Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 28 Post-Modernity, Emerging Adulthood and the Exploration of Female Friendships on Girls Margaret Tally Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 43 So They Say You Have a Race Problem? You’re in Your Twenties, You Have Way More Problems Than That Nikita T. Hamilton Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 59 (Just White) Girls?: Underrepresentation and Active Audiences in HBO’s Girls Boké Saisi Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 73 Hannah’s Self-Writing: Satirical Aesthetics, Unfashionable Ethics, and a Poetics of Cruel Optimism Marcie Bianco Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 91 Embracing the Awkwardness of AUTEURship in Girls Erika M. Nelson viii Table of Contents Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 108 Girls and Growing Up: Self-Reflection and Creative Processes Laura Tansley Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 122 Girls: An Economic Redemption through Production and Labor Laura S. Witherington Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 140 Working Girls? Millennials and Creative Careers Maryann Erigha Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 156 Queering the Single White Female: Girls and the Interrupted Promise of the Twenty-Something Kimberly Turner Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 172 I Want Somebody to Hang Out With All The Time”: Emotional Contradictions, Intimacy and (Dis)Pleasure Melinda M. Lewis Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 186 Dancing on My Own: Popular Music and Issues of Identity in Girls Chloé H. Johnson Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 199 “Occupy” Girls: Millennial Adulthood and the Cracks in HBO’s Brand Chelsea Daggett Contributors ............................................................................................. 217 Index ........................................................................................................ 221 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The editors would, first, like to express their appreciation to all the contributors for their thought-provoking chapters, as well as their professionalism during the editing process. We’d also like to thank our families for “putting up” with our mental absence during this journey and all the people at Cambridge Scholars Publishing that made this timely collection available to all of you. INTRODUCTION GIRLS: QUESTIONS OF GENDER, POLITICS, AND MILLENNIAL ANGST BETTY KAKLAMANIDOU AND MARGARET TALLY HBO’s Girls, which initially aired on April 15, 2012, had its season 3 premiere on January 12, 2014. Lena Dunham, the writer, director and star of the series, has created a whole new season of stories that have, in turn, been pored over and endlessly discussed in the media, especially on the internet as well as through social media. Girls is a member of an elite group of television series that has, since the early 2000s, attracted controversy and adulation, as can be attested to by the thousands of Facebook posts, tweets, comments and forum discussions on these various media. The proliferation of the internet and the capabilities for communication offered by the new social media cosmos, combined with TV’s new golden age in the early to mid-2000s, have undoubtedly led to a new way of approaching these fictional narratives. They have allowed for unprecedented freedom, on the part of their television audience, to express their feelings, criticize every aspect of their favorite show, and consequently create a global community of discussion, exchange, and examination of these programs. At the same time, the media critics of Girls, both online and in conventional news outlets, have themselves created a virtual industry of Girls criticism, analyzing and dissecting every nuance of the show. It is within the cultural and political context of this spirited “chatter” in the media that this collection will be examining Girls’ first two seasons. Academic books usually take considerable time between writing and actual publication, and cannot, by definition, discuss issues that are occurring in real time, so to speak. On the other hand, scholars can benefit 2 Introduction from this time “lapse” or extension because they can step back and write, without being constrained by the very real deadlines that affect the lives of television reviewers and cultural critics alike. Hopefully, this distance can also allow for a more reflective and nuanced interpretation of a cultural work. By saying this, we are by no means implying somehow that journalistic writing, blogs and extensive posts in social media lack depth or sophistication; on the contrary, most of this collection’s chapters cite several articles and blog entries as bibliographical sources, since Girls is a relative new-comer in the US cultural arena and has been the subject of only a handful of published academic articles so far1. What we hope to do in this collection is to benefit from these diverse voices in the media, while taking a “deep breath” and framing these discussions, as well as the series itself, in some larger cultural conversations happening around what place the young women on Girls find themselves in historically, and what this says about our own contemporary cultural and social landscape. Girls and the Millennial Female The current generation of twenty-something women in the United States are part of a new generation who are arguably constructing their identity as women in different ways than their mothers and grandmothers. Broadly defined, these young women are part of a “third wave” of feminism, which has had to respond to a changed set of economic, political and social circumstances. For example, young women today have achieved and, in many cases, far exceeded males in both educational and occupational terms. While this presents many opportunities, it also creates confusion in terms of re-negotiating traditional roles between men and women. In addition, by virtue of the explosion of social media as well as more conventional forms of media (film and television), these young women are exposed to a wide range of gender ideals, and have been able to craft a subjectivity that both converges with conventional images of femininity while at the same time possibly subverts them. Finally, despite the increases in educational opportunities and jobs, these young women have come of age during a period of deep uncertainty about the economy. This instability causes a problem for them in terms of prioritizing one particular life-course over another, whether job or family-related, since they cannot be sure they will be able to achieve it. Thus, this uncertainty helps to forge a subjectivity that is at once contingent and insecure. In this framework, the popular representation of young women in recent film and television shows demonstrates how these tensions are being navigated. Sexuality and intelligence are often contrasted with one Girls: Questions of Gender, Politics, and Millennial Angst 3 another, for example, in these portraits, as smart young women are often shown to make “foolish choices,” in the name of trying to attain intimacy in heterosexual relationships. By contrast, the obvious intelligence of these young women can serve as a bonding agent with other young women, while at the same time offering a mechanism for them to find solace